Michigan may be in the heart of the American Midwest, but it feels like a state with a coast. Its mitten-shaped peninsulas touch four of the five Great Lakes, and with around 11,000 inland lakes, too, you’re never more than a 10k from some kind of water.
The Upper Peninsula is the place to go for dense forest, snowy winters, and an outdoorsy lifestyle influenced by Finnish and Swedish heritage. Head south to the Lower Peninsula for Detroit-style pizza, unique Petoskey Stones, and the University of Michigan — including its Law Library with the reading room of your dark academia dreams.
Michigan is the Cherry Capital of the US and home to the Isle Royale National Park — wolves and otters and moose… oh, my! It’s also the birthplace of both the cornflake and the Motown sound — the state that invites you to dance in the streets and be mayor for a day.
In this episode, we explore the freshwater spring of Kitch-iti-kipi, delve into the history of the Big D, learn about the Kellogg brothers’ feud, and explore Michiganders’ silly nicknames for each other. Then we recommend five books that took us to the Great Lakes State on the page, including a biography of Detroit, a collection of stories set in Dearborn’s Arab-American community, two suspenseful family dramas disguised as thrillers, and a dramedy set at a resort hotel on Mackinac Island.
Here are the books set in Michigan that we recommend on the show:
Make Nice by Ryan Effgen
Once in a Great City by David Maraniss
Dearborn: Stories by Ghassan Zeineddine
The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne
Children of the Wolf by Abby Geni
For a complete roundup of all the books we recommend, plus a full transcript and the other cool stuff we talked about, visit the Episode 79 show notes.
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